Kittery educators evaluate standardized test scores, strategies

Tuesday

May 6, 2014 at 10:20 PMMay 6, 2014 at 10:24 PM

KITTERY, Maine — As the school department analyzes the most recent standardized test scores, principals from all three schools shared with the School Committee on Tuesday night the efforts they are making to “drill down” through the data to target and help individual students who are struggling.

Deborah McDermott

KITTERY, Maine — As the school department analyzes the most recent standardized test scores, principals from all three schools shared with the School Committee on Tuesday night the efforts they are making to “drill down” through the data to target and help individual students who are struggling.

The presentations were made in advance of the May 20 committee meeting, when Curriculum Coordinator Marilyn Woodside will present an analysis of overall test scores for the school system.

One recent performance indicator is the New England Common Assessment Program scores for Grades 3-8, which were released in March. While Kittery bested state averages, in some grades by a considerable amount, students scored lower than they did in 2012-13.

Those scores formed the basis of the presentation by Shapleigh Middle School Principal Anne Ellis. Ellis discussed the NECAP Grade 8 reading scores, which are down 6 percent since 2011.

“I saw a quick call to duty,” said Ellis, who arrived in the summer of 2013. “We needed to take a look at that and try to halt it.”

She said she met with Woodside, her leadership team and, finally, all the teachers to find possible reasons for the drop in scores. Several areas were identified, such as the fact that reading was reduced in seventh grade and eliminated in eighth grade two years ago when Spanish was introduced. Teachers also felt the older students needed to learn organizational skills.

The school staff also looked at different tests results in addition to the NECAPs and found that of all the eighth graders who took the NECAPs last fall, only a handful — eight in all — were truly not proficient in reading and are getting help.

Mitchell Primary School Principal David Foster said his teachers went through a major refocus this year to identify students in all subject areas who need help. Teachers have created a “data wall” for each student that includes not only standardized test scores but information like their number of years at Mitchell, whether they are a military student, whether they are receiving homework support, whether they are receiving special education services and the like.

“It's absolutely a game-changer for Mitchell School,” Foster said. “The amount of information we've collected helps us to know how kids are doing and what we need to do for intervention.”

Foster said the data wall will follow students from grade to grade at Mitchell and also to Shapleigh. Further, he said, he expects special education costs will be reduced because referrals will go down due to intervention.

At Traip Academy, teacher Nancy Berry explained how math teachers are preparing students to better take the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, which in Maine have been the standardized test for 11th-graders. That will change starting next year, when a new standardized test will be introduced.

She said Traip ranks 22 out of 108 Maine high schools in math SAT test scores, and has consistently outperformed the state. She said a specialist came to the school this year and talked with math teachers about skills they can teach students so test scores can improve — such as ignoring questions you don't know and concentrating on those you can answer. She said teachers have been able to look at each SAT answer for each student, and target those that a large percentage of students are answering incorrectly.

Committee member David Batchelder wondered why teachers are “teaching to the question” if the test is changing next year, but member Kim Bedard said, particularly in math, standardized tests are important indicators of math knowledge.

Advertise

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
seacoastonline.com ~ 111 New Hampshire Ave., Portsmouth, NH 03801 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service